Afghan boy's trip reminds: When 2 Indians hid in wheel well of UK flight, one lived to tell a tale of luck, tragedy
Afghan teen's curious escape-cum-adventure brought back memories of a similar journey, only much more tragic, from three decades ago, by 2 brothers from Punjab
When a 13-year-old Afghan boy landed in Delhi by hiding in the wheel well of a plane from Kabul, his escape/adventure brought back memories of a similar incident — only much bigger, much more tragic — from three decades ago, when two brothers from India's Punjab tried this method to get to the UK.
They were much older, and only one of them made it. The survivor's story stood out as a medical anomaly. He went on to get residential status and worked at London's Heathrow Airport. But that's only an unfairly brief version of the story.
Theirs was a tale of daring desperation, and partial providence.
Back to the present for now.
The Afghan teenager, from Kunduz city, was spotted almost immediately upon landing and sent back within hours, assessed as no threat. He told security officials at the Delhi airport that he was just curious. He even carried a small speaker with him for the journey of less than two hours.
How Pardeep and Vijay Saini decided to take risk
In October of 1996, when brothers Pardeep Saini, 23, and Vijay Saini, 19, decided it was a good idea to hide in the landing gear area of a plane, they wanted to escape their lives as car mechanics. And make it in the land where many Punjabis before them had made much better lives, or so they'd heard. They had relatives in London's Southall, a hub of mostly Punjabis from South Asia.
{{/usCountry}}In October of 1996, when brothers Pardeep Saini, 23, and Vijay Saini, 19, decided it was a good idea to hide in the landing gear area of a plane, they wanted to escape their lives as car mechanics. And make it in the land where many Punjabis before them had made much better lives, or so they'd heard. They had relatives in London's Southall, a hub of mostly Punjabis from South Asia.
{{/usCountry}}It was also the time of militancy in Punjab, though on the wane, and they feared they'd be accused of links to Sikh separatists, Pardeep told the media at the time.
{{/usCountry}}It was also the time of militancy in Punjab, though on the wane, and they feared they'd be accused of links to Sikh separatists, Pardeep told the media at the time.
{{/usCountry}}They paid 150 pounds to an agent in Delhi who found this “easy method”. He told them they could get into the luggage compartment from the wheel well — a passage that does not exist. They believed him.
{{/usCountry}}They paid 150 pounds to an agent in Delhi who found this “easy method”. He told them they could get into the luggage compartment from the wheel well — a passage that does not exist. They believed him.
{{/usCountry}}They weren't hopeful of a visa, and did not have enough money for a trip anyway.
Pardeep said they crept on to the Delhi runway under cover of darkness. "We headed for the first plane we could see," he told The Mirror in 1997.
A journey through freezing hell
They knew surviving by just hanging in the wheel well could be fatal. “Once inside the undercarriage, Vijay began looking for the door in to the baggage hold, but before we knew it, the plane started to move,” Pardeep said.
It was a Boeing 747 jumbo jet with over 300 people onboard, being served drinks, settled in for a 10-hour cruise of a journey. An ordeal from hell began for the Saini brothers in the wheel well.
The plane went as high as 10 kilometres, temperatures to minus 60 degrees Celsius, and winds hit hurricane levels. They were dressed in two layers of cotton clothing — shirts and thin jackets.
"The noise was terrible," Pardeep told British media at the time, "As the wheels came up they were glowing hot. They were burning us."
But temperatures dropped drastically soon after. They were frozen in different corners, so Pardeep couldn't be sure when his brother died. He, too, passed out minutes after take-off. Pardeep said his next memory was of being in a detention centre, where he found out that his brother had died.
How Pardeep survived as stowaway
Vijay's body had fallen 2,000 feet to the ground when the flight approached Heathrow for landing. It was found five days later in nearby Surrey.
Pardeep does not remember that he was found stumbling by the ground staff.
Captain Michael Post, the pilot, later wrote to him, congratulating him: "I hope that in the future I may have the pleasure of carrying you as a legitimate passenger on the INSIDE of the aeroplane."
Doctors said Pardeep probably went into a state of suspended animation, but it could never be fully determined beyond just an anomaly that he lived at all.
For years after, Pardeep suffered violent nightmares, calling out his dead brother's name.
His uncle Tarsem Singh Bola said at the time: "Some people say he is the luckiest man alive… Some days he feels lucky, but then he realises the agony that luck has brought. Then he feels he might as well have died too."
After his initial plea for asylum was rejected, British leaders including those of Indian origin called for granting him residency on compassionate grounds.
That was in the late 1990s. He later settled in the UK after a prolonged legal battle for asylum, lived in London, where he worked at Heathrow Airport, reports said. He would be in his 50s now. His current whereabouts were not known.
